I agree with Nick....

Following the first of three outings for what felt like The Goons reunion tour on ITV last Thursday night,  it seems from the aftermath to have been a momentous turning point in the career of a previously virtually-unknown figure in British politics. But enough about Alastair Stewart. Ninety minutes is a long time in politics: so long, in fact, that I suspect there will be many people among the viewing public who failed to stay the course of the entire sequence of rehearsed spontaneity. For the benefit of those people, what follows is a potted version of what they were trying to say. (If you wish to check this against what was actually said, you can see the full transcript by clicking here.) For the sake of brevity, I have included only each leader's initial answer to some of the questions, and a few choice highlights of the exchange between them.

Happy Hour (and a half) started with an opening gambit from each of the leaders:

Clegg: I wish to state again that my strategy is to alienate myself from these two jokers as often and as strongly as possible. I would also like to talk to you about greedy bankers. [Note to ITV: rhyming slang does not constitute a legitimate pre-watershed defence.]

Brown: The country is in a mess (I stress yet again as a result of the global financial crisis: nothing to do with me), but I'm here to make empty promises of improvement. Many of them will sound familiar because they are identical to the promises my party has made at the last two elections, and we've brought them back because we thought what better way to win an election than to use the same ideas that have won us the last three? Of course, to do that we have had to refrain from taking any action on them before now. That's why my plan is so much better than these guys': because it's been thirteen years in the making.

Cameron: I would like to cosy up to you by expressing the same dissatisfaction and horror as the public in the wake of the expenses scandal. This may have little bearing on major policy decisions and seem largely irrelevant to the opening of this debate: tough. Through gritted teeth I would also like to add that I think Labour have done some good things during their time in office, but only because my publicity co-ordinator has told me to.

How heartening that so much effort seemed to have gone into preparing something original and inspiring to say. Then came the questions:

Question: What key elements for a fair, workable immigration policy need to be put in place to actually make it work effectively? 

Brown: I can't tell you what needs to be done in the future, but I can tell you how wonderful I have been over my three years as PM. Isn't that nice of me? I think we'll choose to ignore the fact that the system doesn't really work: it's a minor detail.

Cameron: I would put a cap on immigration numbers having first stressed how badly Gordon has got it wrong, and how he has allowed it to affect our public services.

Clegg: Again, I would like to point out the failings of both other parties in the past. I would like to make immigration fair, and to ensure that this can happen, we have a policy that sounds brilliant but is in practice totally unrealistic. I think we can definitely trust all immigrants to go to a single place in the UK and never ever move.

Brown: Let's be honest [yes, Gordon, let's. Let us know when it happens.]: if there are any problems with the current migration figures, it's as a result of whatever the Conservatives did before 1997. Luckily, I have got one of my aides to manipulate these figures so that  they give the impression that we've done a good job. 

Cameron: I've met a black man who might have said that he thinks the system needs to be reformed. So it's not racist to want to put a cap on the numbers.

Clegg: I'm going to tell you a largely-incorrect story about a neo-natal ward that I visited that had no staff, which will illustrate my point rather nicely with only a few slight variations on the truth. 

Cameron: There are benefits to immigration, but it has spiralled out of control. The figures prove it.

Brown: I don't like these words. 

Of course you don't, Gordon. No doubt it would have been better if the Tory advisers could have got their figures from the same 'source' as you did.

Clegg: This is just another example of where both other parties have gone wrong. We need the regional approach. Let's bring it in and worry about logistics later.

Brown: I agree with Nick. [Please, Nick, if there is a hung Parliament, let me be Prime Minister.]

Cameron: Can I ask Nick how he intends to enforce regionalised immigration?

Clegg: Very easily.

Right. That's settled then.

Question: I was born and still work in Burnley, Lancashire. The town has the highest burglary rate per head of population in the entire country. What confidence can you give me that towns such as this all over the UK can be made safer places to live and work? 

Cameron: I went to Crosby the other day and saw that bad things are happening. I would therefore like to put burglars in prison: a novel concept after 13 years of Labour.

Clegg: I would like to emphasise that my constituency is in the North, and that I have been brilliant at reducing the crime rate amongst youngsters there. I Understand Northerners.

Brown: If it means that you will vote for me, I will tell you that we are going to do far more to reduce crime. However, before I do that, I would like to highlight that the crime rate is falling. Or at least it was during whichever timeframe my advisers decided to take the figures from. Parents need to take more responsibility for the behaviour of their children: that way, we can blame them when the figures go up again.

Cameron: Drug addicts are the worst offenders. Forget hug-a-hoodie: hug-a-junkie.

Clegg: And again, I say: I do nice things in the North.

Brown: The Conservatives will cut spending on police. As it is clearly ridiculous to expect a reduction in the absurd amount of unnecessary paperwork that we make them do, it is only reasonable to assume that this will result in fewer police on the street. 

Gordon actually said 'less police'. It's hard to decide which I find more unappealing: his inability to refrain from copious self-congratulation, or his poor command of the English language. The debate continued:

Brown: On an unrelated note, I haven't had an opportune moment so far to mention Lord Ashcroft, so in case the chance doesn't present itself I would like to remind the voting public of his existence.

Question: I own a pub, and people like to chat over a drink. Nothing's provoked more discussion than MPs' expenses. Given the recent scandals involving all parties, how are you intending to re-establish the credibility of MPs in the eyes of the electorate?

Clegg: Those who were involved deserve no credibility. Fortunately, although it's not strictly exactly true, I can say that no Lib Dem MPs abused the system: does that make me credible? [No.]

Brown: My parents always taught me to be honest. In the spirit of those values, I have decided to pass the Tory right-of-recall policy off as my own. It's a good idea, so we'll be having it. This topic also gives me an excellent opportunity to ask Nick again if I can be PM as long as we agree with him on electoral reform.

Cameron: I was really quite cross about the whole thing, and I told my lot to jolly well apologise. I'd also like to draw attention to corruption within Lib Dem funding circles, but I'll veil it with the measured remark that we're all to blame.

Brown: We're promising a referendum on electoral reform next year. Sound familiar?

Brown: I think we need to raise the standard of the debate here.

Probably best if you stop talking then, Gordon.

Question: I'm in my final year of school. I found that the system is incredibly grades-driven, so much so, that often education for its own sake is at sacrifice. We are over-examined and under-taught. What will the party leaders do to improve education?

Brown: Please see my answer on the crime question and replace 'police' with 'teachers'. 

Cameron: Please see my answer on the crime question and replace 'police' with 'teachers'.

Clegg: Please see what David Cameron just said and replace 'Conservative' with 'LibDem'.

Question: How certain can you be that your party's policies will deal with the budget deficits without damaging economic growth?

Cameron: Labour's jobs tax will kill the recovery. [That was definitely a spontaneous line.]

Clegg: We're going to be open and straight with you by putting meaningless, arbitrarily-estimated numbers in our manifesto. 

Brown: And again, I say: the recession was global. Not my fault. 

Repeat ad inifinitum. Finally the Dimbleby impersonator put a stop to it:

Alastair Stewart: I think I'm going to park it there.

There is a God.

Question: British troops seem to be dying unnecessarily and far too frequently. In my opinion, they are under-equipped and massively underpaid. What assurances can you give the armed forces that things will improve?  

Clegg: If we don't replace Trident, we'll be totally unprotected if there's ever a nuclear threat, but we will at least be able to keep soldiers' pay the same.

Brown: In a bid to prove myself as an orator, I am going to answer by paying homage to our armed services. I shall also illustrate that this is yet another area in which we have massively increased beaurocracy, and hence our spending figures have skyrocketed. That makes us look brilliant.

Cameron: I'm also going to pay tribute, which will make me seem like I have the upper hand when I go on to criticise Gordon rather than going into our policy.

Clegg: Did I mention I'm from Sheffield?

Only about as many times as the Prime Minister claimed to agree with you. You could, perhaps, ask these people to make you up some merchandise.

The questions continued, and the boredom set in. Then came the summing-up:

Cameron: I echo my own earlier sentiments about the jobs tax.  

Clegg: I would essentially like to say exactly what I said at the start, but in a cynical bid to prove that I have listened, I am also going to recite the name of each of tonight's questioners. 

Brown: I would rather have been watching The X Factor. 

Gordon, it seems likely that many would go so far as to say that they would rather have been watching paint dry on the basis of the amount of charisma you showed. The sense of anticipation for next week's episode is palpable. 

...And finally: let this be a lesson to us all not to make flippant remarks about Boris on a mobility scooter.

A few manifesto-launch highlights, and related pearls of wisdom

You might assume that the radio silence here over the last few days has been as a result of the state of awe and wonderment I found myself in following the unveiling of the remainder of the manifestos this week: you would be wrong. It might not have been the most inspiring week, but it is at least heartening to see that negative smear tactics are being abandoned by some (see here for UKIP's newest addition to propaganda-wielding chip vans the nation over). Fortunately, they seem to have a far more comprehensive grasp of our current economic plight, as made evident by Nigel Farage: "It's time for some straight talking on the economy: we're skint." Such wisdom. Sadly, their grasp on their own manifesto was less impressive:

Journalist: Do you intend to extend your burkha ban to private buildings?

Lord Pearson: We haven't said anything about private buildings.

Nondescript UKIP bigwig: Yes we have, it's on page 15.

Lord Malcolm Powder: I will hand you over to our policy chief. 

Journalist: You say in the first line of your manifesto that, in year one, you will reduce public spending to 1997 levels.

UKIP man: Yes.

Journalist: Can you tell us what spending levels were in 1997?

UKIP man: No.

The UKIP launch on Tuesday was, perhaps fortunately in light of the above, somewhat overshadowed by David Cameron's little blue book (I speak, of course, of the manifesto, and not of the copy of Erotic Poetry for Vegans that a local radio presenter so kindly gave him on Monday evening). Cameron reminded the electorate that 'Labour have lost their way. They don't have anything left to say' (he's a poet - and he didn't even realise, as a good friend of mine would say). The launch was held in Battersea power station: a shell of a building in need of renovation. Nick Clegg chose to interpret this as an apt comparison with the 'style-over-substance' Tory Party (he described it as 'a power station that doesn't generate power'; the art of metaphor is lost on some people). Pity that nobody thought to make the parallel observation of Labour's choice to host their launch in a hospital containing no equipment (one might argue therefore rendering it useless) and what that might say about them. Tuesday's opinion polls seemed to be suggesting a narrowing of the Tory-Labour gap. Happily, William Hague was on hand to offer this warning: 'There are three polls out tonight: one showing a three-point lead, one with five, one with eight and one with ten. And the moral of that story is not to take too much notice of opinion polls.' Surely the moral of that story is, in fact, not to trust Hague's maths skills.

The LibDems seemed to start gearing up fairly early in the week for their launch, and he obviously left a lasting impression on senior citizen Ken Stacey, who when asked by a news reporter what he had made of Mr Clegg, replied 'I haven't met him yet.' 'You've just shaken hands with him,' replied the journalist. Oh dear. The BBC has been covering the morning press conferences which seem to have left Clegg looking like a very small rabbit caught in the headlights of a gas-guzzling  SUV. In essence:

Journalist: Do you acknowledge that cracking down on tax loopholes will not fill the whole of the black hole, and can you estimate how many people will be negatively affected?

NC: I'd rather talk about aviation tax, and how we will blame the airlines if they pass the increase in taxation onto their customers.

Journalist: Can you tell us where you are on VAT?

NC: Our plans do not require an increase in VAT, but by repeating yet again everything that we think is wrong with the Conservatives' tax policy I am setting myself up to be able to pass the buck if we realise at any stage that we're wrong.

Journalist: Are you going to increase taxes in order to compensate for the higher threshold of the lowest tax band?

NC: Our plans will evolve over time. This means I'm not ruling out a tax increase, but if I distract you with talk of increasing bank levies then I will divert your attention towards a common enemy.  

The irony of the LibDems' choice of a city bank for their event on Wednesday and their subsequent announcement of extra bank levies did not go unnoticed. They must have been popular with their hosts. At least they stuck a few numbers in the manifesto for good measure, claiming to have set out exactly how they would afford their plans for tax-and-spend. There were a couple of negligible issues with this: they have purportedly underestimated the cost of tax breaks for income under £10,000 by £5bn, and have plucked and almost entirely arbitrary figure from out of the air to suggest what they might save by clamping down on tax avoidance. Clegg overcame with his usual war cry to the effect of 'the old parties are trying to dupe you, and we're the only ones to give you concrete figures'. Numbers are all very well, Mr Clegg, but if your sums don't add up then one of two things needs to happen: either do some real maths (as Mr Hague will tell you, just saying numbers doesn't necessarily count), or give up on the honesty and openness. It's all very laudable, but if there's one economy that most politicians are exceptionally good at managing, it's economy with the truth, and that's for a good reason: just ask Tony. It's OK to lie as long as it was in good faith. Or something.

The issue of tax avoidance was the first to be put to David Laws during an interview on Wednesday evening. I must say, I have never failed to be unimpressed by that man, and so far during this campaign he has not disappointed:

Sopel: You say you can raise £4.5bn on tax avoidances - why hasn't this been recouped already if it's so easy to do?

Laws: Labour have failed to recoup even more than we will undoubtedly fail to, so it's the lesser of two evils. At least if you vote for us we'll aim to convince you that our failing has been of a smaller magnitude, and we'll still be able to claim that we have done better even though that will be entirely misleading.

Sopel: Are any of your budgets ringfenced? You said the NHS and International Development budgets were on Newsnight.

Laws: What I said was that money saved from these organisations would be ploughed back into them. It's all there in Vince's homework.

Sopel: Vince said that you spoke out of line, and that you got it wrong.

Laws: This is an opportune moment for one of those tricks where I answer an entirely different question on an unrelated topic to distract you from the fact that I've made myself look stupid: the other parties won't admit wanting to raise taxes... [we all know the rest]

Then came the eternal question, expertly dodged by Nick Clegg on many an occasion (obviously forming a key part of his new policy to be open and honest with the electorate):

JS: In the event of a hung parliament, what constitutes the biggest mandate? Votes or seats?

DL: We have launched our manifesto today that outlines our four key policies. [You know, the ones that Clegg told Paxo probably wouldn't have any significance whatsoever in striking a deal after the election.] It'll be votes and seats that matter.

Clegg's response to the same question was essentially: 'I'm going to harp on about democratic principles so that I can reserve judgment until I know which is likely to serve us best. In the mean time, as we are all so painfully aware of my holier-than-thou pledge to clean up politics, I'll continue to slate both other parties equally. It'll be votes and seats that give the biggest mandate.' Someone really should sit these goons down and explain to them how first-past-the-post works. Having said that, their apparent total lack of understanding might go a long way to explain why they're so keen on electoral reform.

...And finally: The remainder of this week has been focussed on the first-ever live debate between our would-be PMs and Nick Clegg (discussion of this will appear here some time over the weekend). On Wednesday morning, Lord Mandelson gave some canny advice to Gordon Brown. I just love a good, honest, principled politician:

8.36am: I have told the Prime Minister not to compete with Cameron on personal insults. 

8.44am: Cameron has a long, toffee nose. 

Thus spake a Member of the House of Lords.

Manifestly fair, or manifestly disappointing?

I have decided to dispense with the rather prosaic and repetitive subject headings that I have been using thus far, and will from now on make some vague attempt at a subtle introduction to the day's discussion. No prizes for guessing what today has been about: I seem to have fallen at the first hurdle as far as the subtlety is concerned. The first manifesto launch of the campaign meant that inevitably senior masterminds of the Labour Party were out in force to propel their message that Labour is equipped to steer the country into the future (as metaphorically demonstrated by their nauseating front cover, accompanied by some ridiculous cartoon representation of policy, presumably in some attempt to make the idea of economic streamlining more cuddly).

For one horrible split second whilst listening to the Today Programme this morning I thought Tony himself had crawled back once again to lend his excessively-tanned support to the manifesto. Fortunately, Tony seems still to be advertising for St Tropez or whatever it was he went off to do, and I quickly realised that it was in fact Miliband Minor, who seems to have taken up Blair's pre-American-accent fake 'ordinary guy' whine. His exchange with John Humphrys lends itself rather well to a spot of interpretation for the sake of clarity:

John Humphrys: Where have you wasted money?

Ed Miliband: We haven't.

JH: How can you save money if you haven't wasted any?

EM: I can tell you instead where the Tories want to spend money that we say they won't have if that helps.

JH: You said things in previous manifestos that you didn't adhere to, like promising no income tax increase. Why should we believe you now?

EM: Any tax increases that we have made have been as a result of the global recession and not because we made bad economic decisions. 

JH: But why should be believe you?

EM: If you're not going to let me make excuses about the past, I'll make excuses about the future. In any case, it's an academic point because if we're re-elected we'll just shift the tax rises sideways as we have before in the hope that no one will notice.

Even the argumentative stalwart Humphrys seemed to be growing tired by the end of the interview, which led to a particular highlight of irony:

JH: This is all a bit vague.

EM: What's a bit vague?

How prophetic, too, that Mr Miliband should foresee the day's controversy over three former Labour MPs claiming legal aid to fight criminal proceedings over their expenses claims. When asked by Mr Humphrys asked him to name one thing that people want but won't be able to have as a result of the inevitable post-election spending cuts, Miliband immediately responded that a reduction in the funding of legal aid would be necessary, but that the public would resist its reduction. Not so, Mr Miliband: if members of the Labour Party are to claim on this resource for their own ends, it's fair to assume that the electorate will be more than willing to forego the extra public funding it involves.

The consensus seems to be that the Labour manifesto is an underwhelming list of non-policies, most of which sound glibly familiar to anyone who was paying attention in the Blair years. The latter observation in itself may explain why Lord Mandelson described the document as 'Blair-Plus': hardly a great advert. The comment later drew Harriet Harman into an exchange with Jon Sopel along these lines:

JS: Do you agree the the Labour Manifesto is Blair Plus?

HH: I think that if that's the description that has been given by Peter Mandelson it must be right, but I don't know what it means.

You're not the only one, Harriet, although there are those of us less willing to put our trust in the Dark Lord so blindly. Douglas Alexander was the other key Labour policy maker to be in interview action this evening, the result of which was rather embarrassing to say the least for someone supposedly so closely involved with the writing of the manifesto. The highlights of the gist:

Eddie Mair: Why won't you rule out a VAT rise?

Douglas Alexander: Alistair Darling won't let me. We have never put up VAT. The Tories did. Blame them if it's too high.

EM: You put it up in January.

DA: That doesn't count, because it was the Tories' fault that it was so high in the first place.

EM: Can you guarantee that no more post offices will close?

DA: We have a good record in supporting the post office network financially.

EM: That's an interesting answer to a different question.

EM: What is the link between immigration and crime?

DA [after a noticeable pause]: I'm not clear why you're asking that.

EM: It's one of the chapter headings in your manifesto. 

Oh dear. 

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Nick Clegg locked horns with Paxman, who optimistically introduced the interview claiming that 'in the coming minutes, we'll find out what Nick Clegg believes'. Good luck, Jeremy. He quickly returned to reality, however, opening the interview by asking: "Let's just establish what planet we're on. You don't seriously think you're going to be Prime Minister do you?" Mr Clegg refused to be drawn on whether he would support the party with the strongest mandate based on share of the vote or number of seats, although it seems as if whichever party ends up having to bargain with him may not have much of a fight on their hands:

JP: What would your priorities be for supporting another party in government?

NC: We have four criteria.

JP: So would any party wanting to form an alliance with you have to accept all four of those?

NC: No.

Excellent, excellent. Heartening to know that Clegg will defend his party's principles to the hilt [insert snigger here] in the event of forming an alliance, despite having waxed lyrical only moments before about the electorate's power and influence over a potentially-close result, and his unwillingness to enter a power-bargain after the election. Paxman went on to begin a grilling on the issues of immigration (unlike the Labour Party, the LibDems are at least refraining from fuelling the BNP's fire by not making the direct link here with crime) and economic policy:

JP: Is it acceptable that the Office of National Statistics is predicting a population of 70 million by 2030?

NC: It's a lot of people.

Ten out of ten for observation.

JP: Would you support a Tory emergency budget if it was going to cut spending?

NC: I would prefer to talk about how I could save the country by scrapping Trident (despite the fact that it's completely unrealistic) and how neither of the other parties will commit to doing this.

JP: Did you really mean that everybody would benefit from your rise in tax-free income threshold to £10k?

NC: The fact that a few high earners wouldn't benefit is a minor detail.

Paxman rightly reminded Mr Clegg that this election campaign is "all about detail". It is a loophole of logic that it seems reasonable to them to attack the Tories for not seeming to have costed their tax proposals properly, but that similar anomalies in their own claims can be dismissed in such a way. Having said that, this is, sadly, in no way a surprise. Tomorrow sees the turn of the Tories to lay out their stall. It remains to be seen whether they can present the manifestly-inspiring case for their election that was absent from the Labour Party today.

...And finally: In a bid to remain party-neutral, see here for some excellent contributions to the collection of spoof Tory campaign posters doing the rounds.

Weekend antics: Campaign Days 4 & 5

The policy watchword of the weekend seems to have been 'couples', with the  big argument focussing on Tory proposals for tax breaks for married couples. Nick Clegg immediately dismissed this idea as 'patronising drivel that belongs in the Edwardian age' in a continuation of a week's worth of lashing out at the two larger parties. It seems, however, that there may be trouble in paradise for Clegg and his campaign wife: yes, Gordon has Sarah, David has Sam, and Clegg has.... well, Vince. Perhaps some sort of domestic clash had propelled grumpy Mr Clegg's less-than-charitable remarks on Cameron's support of marriage - at least he can take comfort in the fact that he and Vince would, in theory, be able to celebrate their partnership with an extra pint thanks to the extra £3 a week that Mr Cameron would give them. On that sort of money, though, it's debatable whether it would be a celebratory pint of anything worth drinking.

The LibDems found themselves at the centre of the other major bone of contention on Saturday, following Lord Adonis' remarks in the Friday press that LibDems in Labour-Tory marginals should get behind the reds to keep the Tories out. Frankly, I marvel at how long (four whole days) the Labour Party has managed to maintain enough belief in its own principles and fearless disregard for patronising the electorate not to have to resort to encouraging tactical voting: party morale must be high. You might be forgiven for thinking that the best way of salvaging this situation would be to stress the right of the voter to make an informed decision based on policy rather than tactic (although admittedly this is wishful thinking), and to acknowledge the presence of the not-insubstantial LibDem support rather than assuming them all to be lacking in principle and fickle enough to form allegiances on the basis of smears from the opposition; that seems to be a job very well done by the politicians, and we can leave them to it. It goes without saying that Gordon "Face for the Radio" Brown (Thanks, Lord Kinnock) did not counter Lord Adonis' comments with such good measure. The message on Saturday was clear: Labour voters in LibDem-Tory marginals should vote LibDem with the same purpose in mind. Whether this serves to appease a disgruntled LibDem votership remains to be seen, but constant Tory-bashing isn't going to convince anyone that the Labour Party has anything of substance to say, and that is what will matter on Election Day.

The issue of tactical voting raises the issue of the continued calls by the LibDems for political reform, one of several topics of conversation between Jon Sopel and 'Saint Vince' Cable on Sunday morning. The discourse followed roughly the following outline:

Jon Sopel: How can Nick Clegg argue that voting Lib Dem will eradicate corruption when 

surely political corruption is the fault of all three main parties?

Vince Cable: This is essentially an extension of our blanket policy to insult both of the other parties at any given opportunity. My colleague has made it abundantly clear at every stage this week that this is the primary focus of our campaign.

JS: Where does the £389 extra VAT figure on your Tory-bashing poster come from?

VC: It's an arbitrary number based in some excessively-tenuous fashion on what they did twenty years ago.

JS: It's not reasonable of you to state as fact on a poster what you've estimated on the basis of past figures

VC: We don't have anything else to go on. [Whether or not our argument is based on fact is a triviality; as a political journalist you should know that this goes for almost anything that any of us ever says.]

JS: Will YOU guarantee not to raise VAT?

VC: No.

Away from the economic debate, anticipation of the Labour manifesto launch seemed to be growing as the weekend drew to a close, no doubt fuelled by Peter Mandelson's claim that 'this is no time for business-as-usual manifesto'. Well done, Lord Mandelson, so you've noticed that the situation that this government has landed us in is no ordinary one. Undoubtedly he will have something canny up his sleeve: as Sir Menzies Campbell said on Question Time last week, 'the Lord Mandelson moves in mysterious ways'. If only he would move a little further away.

...And finally: The BBC provided us with a comprehensive run-down of the most witty jibes and observations of the week (see here). I would like to quote one in particular, from Ann Treneman, which embodies everything that I wanted to say about Brown's last appearance at PMQs: "Almost every Labour MP who spoke had been prompted to ask a question that went something like this: 'Is it true, oh wonderful master, that you have created a land of milk and honey?' Mr Brown, preening, would turn around and admit that, yes, actually it was true."

Campaign Day 4 round-up

With so much talk of cuts, savings and efficiencies over the last few days, it was frankly a blessed relief to have the National Insurance row briefly interrupted by the first major scandal of the campaign on Friday. Yes, the disastrously-inappropriate tweeting on the part of young Stuart MacLennan led to his suspension from the Labour Party and removal as candidate for Moray; ironically, Mr MacLennan appeared to have predicted his fate, having tweeted that “Iain Dale reckons the biggest gaffes will likely be made by candidates on Twitter – what are the odds it will be me?” Well, Stuart, pretty high as it turned out. Perhaps Ladbrokes will be willing to offer you a way out of your current unemployment. Incidentally, it's possible that a certain Mr Hague in his younger years may have sympathised with MacLennan's affinity with alcohol - at one point MacLennan tweeted that "I think I might be sober for the first time in four days" - although on the other hand possibly not: on Saturday, Hague told reporters whilst ordering a Burger King that "the days of fourteen pints are behind me". Now come on, William: that's hardly the talk of a true Northerner.

It seems that the warning to other politicians of the dangers of online electioneering are unlikely to temper the efforts of John Prescott, who, perhaps surprisingly, is one of the most active tweeters and bloggers of them all; maybe the restriction on Twitter of 140 characters per message is a useful exercise for him in learning how to complete a coherent sentence. His solo 'Go 4th' campaign is being religiously documented on his blog (although has received disappointingly little media coverage), a highlight of which has undoubtedly been recent comparison of campaign transport. It appears that in light of the Labour Party's dire financial position, Mr Prescott has forsaken the Jaguar(s), and is traversing Britain in a Transit van, stopping only to showcase his 'Vote Labour' mobility scooter (see here) on the ground; a new nickname is undoubtedly in order.

Mobility scooter in tow, anyone could be forgiven for thinking that Mr Prescott is on the prowl to woo the so-called 'grey vote'. And he wasn't the only one to be doing so on Friday; believe it or not, he probably wasn't the least subtle, either. Cameron's first campaign method to draw the mature voter to him was to visit the Chelsea Pensioners, and it seemed clear that in order to make a good impression, he would need a companion: someone at the cutting edge of Conservativism, on the ball, with an encyclopaedic knowledge of policy, and the unfaltering ability to present themselves as having at least a vague idea of why they had been asked to be there. So of course Boris was the obvious choice. Oh dear. Having suggested off the cuff during a photo shoot (in the midst of spouting jovial war cries at the pensioners) that Tory plans for a voluntary National Citizens' service should be made compulsory (a tack completely at odds with official policy), he later told the BBC that he had meant 'as compulsory as is possible without really cheesing people off'. Well done, Boris; one can only hope for amusement's sake that he will have had some hand in crafting the manifesto - visions of "we'll cut benefits for serial cheats - but only if they've been really really naughty" come immediately to mind. I wonder if Cameron should take inspiration from Mobililty Scooter Prescott and pack Boris off in a transit van with only a blogger for company. Perhaps he could go to Liverpool again. They would probably love that. 

Earlier that same day, Mr Cameron had faced a tirade of questions from the Today Programme, most of which he did manage (disappointingly for the purposes of writing this) to give reasonably straight answers to. Even this one (almost):

Evan Davis: Which daily newspaper are you most naturally drawn to?

Cameron:  Now is not the time to make enemies of newspaper editors. I try to answer questions but I'm going to dodge that one... oh, the Daily Star.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, David. 

Sadly, the distraction from the debate over the economy did not last all day, and the evening brought with it a rather heated exchange between the Chancellor and his shadow presided over by Jon Sopel, the gist of which was as follows:

Jon Sopel: We've brought together the Chancellor and George Osborne to try to get to the bottom of how severe job losses will be after the election. [For a start, this was surely wishful thinking.]

JS: We've heard an admission from the treasury that there will be job losses. Can you tell us how many?

Alistair Darling: The Tories have essentially said that they're going to cut jobs as well. (They actually haven't said that at all but I look better if they look worse. They started it.)

George Osborne: Why don't you publish the report from the Treasury that states where jobs will be cut now rather than waiting until after the election?

AD: I don't have an excuse not to, but if I quote yet again where I think the holes are in the Tories' plans for long enough, people will forget what the question was. In fact, so will I.

 GO: How many job cuts will there be?

AD: Our budget adds up. Between none and some. Probably.

And thus the first week of campaigning drew to a close. Anyone hoping for some sort of respite over the weekend, however, was no doubt sadly disappointed.

...And finally: LibDem leader Nick Clegg spent some of the day visiting a care home, one of the residents of which, Beryl Seal, offered the following inspired observation of the Tory leader: "He's a bit of a wet duck in a thunderstorm, isn't he?"